I've just finished reading Three Cups of Tea, the fascinating story of American mountain-climber Greg Mortenson, who, after losing his way near the Himalayan peak known as K2, promised a poor village that he would build them a school.

Years later, he is the head of the Central Asia Institute, and is responsible not only for building schools, but also for teachers' salaries, medical facilities and supplies, clean water projects, and a host of other humanitarian projects. Mortenson truly is, as the subtitle says, "Promot[ing] Peace...One School at a Time."

But, much as my teacher's heart loves the idea of building schools, I'm not writing about him today.

The book references another book, Ancient Futures, by Helena Norberg Hodge, detailing her intermittent stays in Ladakh. But what caught my eye was a quote from the king of the small Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan:

As the king of Bhutan puts it, the true indication of a society’s well-being is not gross national product but "gross national happiness." (page 103)

Further research shows that, since His Majesty Jigme Khesar Wangchuck uttered that comment in 1972, "Gross National Happiness," or GNH, has become the subject of a number of global conferences, workshops, surveys, etc.

A list of seven "Wellness" criteria has been developed for the (admittedly subjective) measurement of GNH. These are: Economic Wellness, Environmental Wellness, Physical Wellness, Mental Wellness, Workplace Wellness, Social Wellness, and Political Wellness.

But I am more intrigued by the simpler list found in the same article. These are the so-called "Four Pillars" of GNH, which are: "the promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance."

Let's take a brief look at these--and their challenges--one by one:

1. "the promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development": Of course, we all recognize the importance of sustainability; but that word "equitable" is equally as important, since so often in developing economies, the rich get much richer, at the expense of the very poor.

2. "preservation and promotion of cultural values": as opposed to the wholesale elimination of local culture in the name of "progress."

3. "conservation of the natural environment": When a nation is attempting to pull itself up by the bootstraps, the environment is often considered a necessary casualty. Only the wisest of policy-makers can see the long-term benefit of sacrificing some short-term profits in the interest of environmental protection.

4. "establishment of good governance": Though mentioned last, the other three "pillars" stand on this one. The "goodness" of a government might be judged in terms of how effectively that government manages the other three. It goes without saying that the absence of corruption is also a key factor.

As a five-year resident of China, I've been living with the results of neglecting these Four Pillars. I've been chasing down temples and other cultural relics here in Shenzhen, China's Boomtown, even as they disappear or are transformed into tourist attractions.

And, as a future resident of the Philippines, I am even more sensitive to these, as--after centuries of occupation by Spain and then America--the Islas Filipinas in their over-sixty years of independence still seem to struggle with all four of these issues.

And how about my homeland? How are we doing on measures of GNH? And will it get better after November 4th?

I should have known "Terry" was a Christian right away. There's something about Christians in China: Perhaps because the environment has been hostile at times, they tend to be a bit more committed, and a bit more consistent, than they might be otherwise. In the past, Christians were likely to be found in Christian families; these days, in the more open society, some young people are converting while their parents maintain traditional beliefs, but a Christian household still seems to be the norm. If Dad converts, everyone converts.

Anyway, Terry was the first Christian I met in China, and his kindness was all the evidence one needed. Countless times he has come to my rescue, especially since he teaches computer science and knows the ins and outs of Shenzhen's electronics industry.

His mother had told him Bible stories when he was a boy; too busy with his studies to follow up on Mom's teachings during his school years, he considered them to be sort of "fairy tales."

But while living in Hong Kong in the early 90s, he was befriended by a local Christian and attended church with him. It wasn't until 1998, though, when he was living in Australia, that he literally heard the call, and literally heeded it. Chancing into a Sunday service one day, he was struck by the pastor's sermon, and responded to an "altar call," committing his life to Christ in front of the congregation that day.

His dedication to his Christian studies is followed closely by his avid study of English, so when we are together (as we often are on the teachers' bus to school these days), the conversation often turns to one or the other of these topics—or both.

Earlier this week, we were joking about me being a "gweilo," a somewhat derogatory but freely-used word referring to white people. It literally means "ghost man," and is often translated "foreign devil." I remembered that the subtitle of Maxine Hong Kingston's book The Woman Warrior was Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts, as her immigrant mother called the various white people around them "The Mail Ghost," "The Milk Ghost," "The Garbage Ghost," "The Meter Reader Ghost," and even "the Social Worker Ghosts" and "The Public Health Nurse Ghosts."

After we joked about this for a while, Terry got more serious and asked, "Is a ghost always a bad thing in your culture?" The question was kind of loaded, because Chinese people—even modern ones—spend a lot of energy trying to avert the danger of having a pissed-off ghost on their hands.

"Sure," I said, "usually. If someone says, 'I saw a ghost,' they're usually going to say it with some distress. I mean, they won't smile and say cheerfully, 'Guess what? I saw a ghost!'"

"But," he said, "in some of my books, God is called 'the Holy Ghost.'"

AHA! Now I knew where we were going. So I had to explain how language has changed, and how at one time that word just meant "spirit." When I was growing up, it was always "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," but that always seemed weird to me. After liturgical reforms brought us "Holy Spirit," I felt a lot better about it.

It's all just connotation. The Latinate "spirit" is really no better than the German "geist"; no one thinks "zeitgeist" means "ghost of the age." And there's something really beautiful in the assonance of the German "Der Heilige Geist" that carries over into English "the Holy Ghost."

But connotations change. Little kids are afraid of ghosts. So language changes, and we get "spirits" instead. Then, when the language is forced to jump over a cultural divide, confusion reigns. That's why I find it far more important to teach culture than just "language." As a wise old man once told me, "Language without culture is merely a cipher."

HumanisticSpirituality

Who doesn't want to be happy? Humanistic Spirituality embraces and explores all paths--religion, the arts, film and literature, philosophy, science, current events, one’s own intuition--as ways of achieving happiness (the layman's word for "enlightenment").